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Bpost Trofee #2 – Koppenbergcross

[one_half]Do you remember last week’s post, from Plzen? I had had a really good day, I was very happy with the photos and I had found it difficult to whittle it down to 25 images. Well, that wasn’t the case today. I did manage to find a few good angle but overall, I was far from happy with my photos. On the other hand, I managed to chat to a few people I hadn’t seen for a while and a dear friend of mine, Eliza Southwood also came to watch the race with her husband, Liam.[/one_half][one_half_last] She is an illustrator, she does awesome things with her pen, it is well worth checking out her website: www.elizasouthwood.com. We are working on a something together at the moment and we both felt that coming to a cyclocross race would benefit the collaboration. But more on that later. I’m taking the next two days off and then back on the road for the next race: Zonhoven and it’s brilliant sand pit![/one_half_last]

Can you spot the error on the photo?

Michael Vanthourenhout glided through the muddy hell with admirable ease.

Vinnie Braet chases Vanthourenhout up the famous cobbles. He later had to settle for second place.

Niels Albert, Sven Nys and a few other pros were waiting for the course to be cleared and chatted kindly to the next generation of cross riders.

While it had rained all week in Belgium and even the prior night, the women’s race started in the sunshine. Gabby Day negotiates this slippery corner confidently.

Sanne Cant leaves the ‘Materiaalpost’ on a clean bike.

Gabby Day, chased by Hanka Kupfernagel

It was great to see Nikki Harris showing great form at another important race and it was impressive how she spent the majority of the race in the front.

Helen Wyman and Nikki Harris arrived together at the end of the finishing straight. Wyman opened the sprint first and Harris didn’t enough left in the tank to respond to the attack, thus Wyman took her tenth win of the season.

Not sure what was going on here.

According to the organisers, 18,000 spectators came to see the day’s races.

Niels Albert arrived at the top of the big climb in the first lap.

This is the tricky thing about shooting the same races every year: you need to find new angles if you don’t want to be boring. It is difficult to either omit or shoot from an unusual angle the iconic Koppenberg climb. I’m not hundred precent happy with this shot – maybe next year?

Eddy van Ijzendoorn tackles a slippery corner in the second lapEddy van Ijzendoorn

Mud and rubbish

It was actually this steep, I didn’t make it look like any steeper. This is one of the most technical corses and it takes out a lot from the riders.

Jonathan Page slides through a corner. Note the dark clouds in the background that would later on unload their content.

Ian Field had yet another unlucky Koppenbergcross: a puncture deprived him of a top 20 place.

The aforementioned clouds brought rain – it started pissing down with three laps to go.

It didn’t really matter to Sven Nys, though, he carried on powering away in the front.

Thanks for the big guy for photobombing my finish shot of Sven Nys.

Bart Wellens puts on some warm clothes.

Rob Peeters’ foot

Jonathan Page and the mud

She looked at me like I was going to take the bottle and the bouquet away from her.

I’ve spotted the error on the photo: the Stars & Stripes is upside down :o) Wicked to see the photo report of the Koppenbergcross, as I’ve missed it (slaving away @the office). Best pics for me are Tommeke Meeusen going downhill, 18.000 spectators and Sven Nys pics of course ..yay! (Can’t you photoshop that ‘big guy’-spectator at the finish pic?) ;o)

Pictures DO really capture the atmosphere and general ambience of the race. We are veterans of several World Championship X races so understand the passion and enthusiasm at these events. 18,000 in attendance on a weekday, remarkable.